The Corporate Table: Food Benefits, Hospitality & What Brings People Back to the Office

Podcast Transcript

‍_{Adam Landsman}

I'm gonna tell you right now, that's gonna be the most rewatched clip of this conversation. That was some really great stuff.

Welcome back to what's working, a series of conversations with the people behind the workplace. I'm Adam Landsman, senior vice president of growth at Sharebite, the number one meal benefits platform built exclusively for business. I am here today with my good friend Gerard Visser, someone who has led global workplace, hospitality, operations and major companies such as Ramp, SeatGeek, and more. We're here to talk about what's working for you in your career. Welcome, Gerard.

_{Gerard Visser}

Thanks, Adam. It's great to be here with you today.

_{Adam Landsman}

Likewise. On this episode, we're gonna explore the philosophy, the hard won lessons, and the practical instincts that have defined your approach. Let's start with your background. You studied hotel management before making the move into what you've called corporate hospitality. What drew you into this environment and this career path?

_{Gerard Visser}

The honest answer? Yes. Not working nights and weekends. I was looking for a day job as you call it, but wanted to keep my love for hospitality and being able to entertain and make people happy and why not in the workplace?

_{Adam Landsman}

What's some of the most underrated things about the hotel industry that they get right about the office or in their case the hotel?

_{Gerard Visser}

It's the way they approach things and the way they look at everything.

And they just go through the full life cycle of the time someone is there and they look at it step by step and make sure it's done correctly versus having someone come in and be like, hey, this doesn't work right.

_{Adam Landsman}

I I hear a lot of people in hospitality talk about making a great first impression.

Do you think that translates both from hotel situation as well

_{Gerard Visser}

as office situation?

100%.

Some offices I'll start and I'll go in and I'll look and like reception is beautiful and then there's four hundred boxes next to it. Like nobody wants to see that when they walk in as their first impression.

Let's put the boxes behind the wall in the mail room. Have UPS dropped them over there or somewhere else? Or if they're a bunch of boxes for IT, have them drop them directly at IT. No one wants to walk in and you have a million dollar spend on a reception, and you're looking at pile pile of boxes.

_{Adam Landsman}

Now that makes a lot of sense to me. I'm a detail oriented person. It's your, you know, specificity in your job. Is that sometimes hard to convey to others in the organization that are thinking about how they might want the office to look and feel?

_{Gerard Visser}

It does. But thankfully, they get on board very quickly when I'm like, this is how the experience will change if we change these things. At the end of the day, you want everyone to have a good experience. And I never like to say no.

I like to come in and offer opinions and something else. Like, if I'm telling you, no, you can't do that, you're gonna be like, well, this guy sucks. But if I'm like, hey, unfortunately, you can't do that. But if you want, we can build it this way or this way, that could kind of get to your answer.

Would that work for you? And that's another thing like the hospitality school teaches you. Never say no to a guest. Always think of different way to do something or apologize.

Because if you're giving them two separate options, it's now back in their hands to make a decision and they feel in control again.

_{Adam Landsman}

So the the title of head of workplace can mean a lot of different things to different people.

What do you do in that role? How do you define your job?

_{Gerard Visser}

I actually get this question a lot, especially from friends, and I'm like, what does it mean? I was explaining to someone yesterday, and I was like, what used to be facilities and office management and real estate manager are all one role now known as workplace. So head of workplace oversees all real estate transactions from finding the real estate broker to going out, sourcing different offices. Then once the office is selected, present the options to the execs, go tour.

Then once that's done, actually building out the space, then the move, which is the most fun part for everyone.

And then what brings up the most disdain in people is the seating chart. Who sits where everyone wants a word in the game. And then you have just everyday happiness in the office. What's our snack program look like?

What's our lunch program look like? What are we getting for dinner? People have opinions on everything, especially how hot is it, how cold is it, what can we change. A lot of the time, the building control these things, so we would suggest to folks, bring a sweater if you run cold.

We can get a little heater if you're running too cold, but work with the people on the everyday items. Then the facility side of things is what's the upkeep? AC is not working. How can we get it up and going?

The big thing on people's minds these days is CO2. Do we have enough natural airflow from the outside? What's pushing through the office?

And then how is the office actually set up? You want to be thoughtful in how you do it. Don't just have five hundred desks in a row. Have two hundred desks, some open space where people can sit and congregate, then have another hundred desks, then more open space. Everyone should be able to see a coworking space from where they sit so they can have it in mind. Because if it's out of sight, it's out of mind.

_{Adam Landsman}

I will tell you back to the AC, The coldest days in any office are in the midsummer when it's eighty five degrees outside.

_{Gerard Visser}

100%.

_{Adam Landsman}

A lot of things that you talk about, I've heard people refer to as nice to haves or must haves. How do you think of the difference as it relates to some of the office things that you mentioned and whether they fall into the nice to have category or must have?

_{Gerard Visser}

Nice to haves fall into your finance department. What will they allow you to do?

Having a supportive CEO helps a lot and CFOs cross on we want people in the office. I'm like, great. This is the nice to have. This is the must have.

I I see food programs as a must have because once I know you everyone hates these words, but when we did talk about RTL and getting people back in the office, bribery was the best medicine. You offered lunch and people came in for a free meal. No one wants to sit in a small New York City apartment. They want to come and sit in an office, but you need to make it better than commute, better than home.

So it was offering food, then it was offering better snacks, then it was like then you get to the nice to haves, which is like a coffee cart once a month or even a barista full time at some companies, or we started doing dinner service when we wanted to get more out of Q4 sales.

Just keep adding to the nice to haves, and then people are in from nine AM, and they're there till seven thirty PM because they wanna be there, not because they have to be.

_{Adam Landsman}

That's great. So you worked at Ramp during a period of explosive growth, new offices, expanding footprints, employee scaling. What is an environment like that demand of a workplace leader?

_{Gerard Visser}

To always be on. There's no turning off. We had one instance where eleven forty five PM, I got a call because the Okta sync into our badge scanning app just stopped working. It was no fault of our own, but Okta had somehow turned it off.

And, thankfully, we were able to fix it overnight. Their engineers had it up and running by two AM, and people could get into the office the next day.

But it's nonstop. It's looking and you're it's also a lot of a guessing game with when it comes to headcount because you have assumed headcount, probable headcount, then actual headcount.

When you're looking I was chatting with a company today who's right now, they're two hundred fifty people. By the end of this year, they're gonna be five hundred. By the end of next year, gonna be a thousand.

That's not your traditional workplace needs.

So you figure out when at what point are you gonna have a large enough space where you'll need a leased office for ten years, Then because you know you're going a rapid growth, you wanna put in a three and a five year break just to have that risk taken out.

But in the interim, if you're only thirty, fifty people, use managed services.

Things like WeWork, the Mail in, we we have a great provider, Serendipity Labs out in Denver, where we had a twenty person office, but a year later, we're fifty. And they were like, no problem. We just moved to the other side of the floor. So figure out which companies can work with you or agile that can revolve around you and make the difference.

_{Adam Landsman}

As complicated as space is to provide for a growing population, I think culture sometimes is even harder. What are some of the hardest things in the way you've solved that about keeping the right culture that you want as a company scales through some of those headcount growths?

Get it right in your HQ and then take

_{Gerard Visser}

that playbook everywhere else.

Not only do you have it set up correctly the first time, but once you know what works, you just have it in every office. That way you have the same feeling across the brand. Someone walks into another office, they already know they're gonna be snacks. They're gonna get lunch. They're gonna get dinner if they're working late.

It's like, we'll have coffee. We'll have everything you need. If you we'll have the same badging system for offices where possible. Sometimes the buildings don't always allow it, and just make it easier.

_{Adam Landsman}

Great. Let's get into some of the more tactical What are some of the non-negotiables?

And maybe less so around the the food and the the coffee, which I think are are certainly at the top of the list. Maybe things like rituals and other incentives and culture drivers, would you say?

_{Gerard Visser}

Some companies have been shying away from happy hour. We still do it. We love it. When we get a huge attendance, We don't just do happy hour.

We'll also get dinner at the same time. I know you don't wanna talk about food, but it still helps. And then we'll also put out the board games. So then people have a couple of drinks, have some dinner, and like, alright.

I'm also competitive. I will challenge you at Catan and see how you do. You have your team that wanna go and do basketball together. And like, great.

You're gonna come in the office and then go to do basketball? We'll get you a court for the night once a month. Wanna go soccer league and have that competitive spirit elsewhere, done. We've got you.

Another big thing that Ramp, specifically does is a travel budget for employees that don't work in the office. And so quarterly, they can come to the offices and actually be together Because community is very important in growing a company and having more of that, like, family friend feel than just, oh, it's work.

_{Adam Landsman}

Alright. Let's talk about some metrics.

_{Gerard Visser}

Okay.

_{Adam Landsman}

So with all these programs that you implement, how do you measure them? What tools are you using? What specific metrics are you trying to keep track of that are important to help deem whether something is successful or not?

_{Gerard Visser}

Usage is by far the most important, and then obviously office attendance and how it affects it.

We have people in three days a week, and you get a dedicated desk, and we track your badge data. We also track Wi Fi connections. So we know when you're in the office, not everyone badges in all the time. Sometimes people trail in.

You look at a secondary point of contact on to make sure people are in. But using that data, you can see where you're going from, like, three hundred on a Monday to five hundred seventy five on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, back down to two fifty on a Friday. People are in Tuesday to Thursday.

Why are they in? Those are the days when everyone does their events. That's when people do their breakfast. That's when they go and do yoga together after work or just decide, hey, we're gonna do our own team happy hour on a Thursday or go play paddle together. People love being out and about together.

_{Adam Landsman}

So I can't believe we're still talking about RTO, return to office, but we are. And you've pointed out a lot of good things that I I think are reasons to get people back into the office. What are some things that you think leaders get wrong when they either try to establish the RTO policy or things that they implement to try to support it?

_{Gerard Visser}

I think the biggest thing is they don't speak to the people first.

So for instance, when I'm opening up a new office, I will go speak to the locals. I mean, like, how do you wanna have this office? What do you wanna see here? Where do you wanna be? What amenities do you want? What's important to you?

And go from that method, then find offices, and only take one or two stakeholders from the locality, go with me on all the tours, and then we'll when we're down to two to three, we'll take a group of the locals and be like, these are our final two. Which do you wanna be in every day and vote on it? Because at the end of the day, I'm not gonna be here. I wanna be in New York.

You're gonna be here every day. So I wanna know what you think. And a lot of leaders will just make decisions without necessarily speaking to the people. Hey, we know you don't like it, but we really want people in office.

What do you want to see that'll make you come to the office versus us forcing you to come to the office?

And like there's also so much anxiety and stuff in the world. This is a lot more people that just work better and quiet. And my personal opinion, if someone gets their job done, I don't care where you get it done.

But I love it when you're in the office because I get to know you. I get to know what you do. I get to know your family, and we get to figure out what do you want in the office that'll keep you coming to the office.

_{Adam Landsman}

So this might be an unfair question for you because most of the organizations you've been a part of do have a pretty strong in office culture. But what would you say to the remote first companies that either only have a small office attended, you know, minimally about some of the best ways to keep their culture and keep people engaged with each other.

_{Gerard Visser}

Look at different events you can do that don't have to be in person. What can be done remotely? We did a drag bingo once. I got a ton of attendance. People were just like, oh, this is fun.

We had a a DJ that went on and was doing trivia with people. Like, where can people join in without having to be there? Someone else did a cocktail making class, and we sent little kits to older houses and everyone got on and made it together. Someone else was like, hey, I'm from here.

This is what I love making. I'll teach you how to make it. We'll send you a little kit. This is all you need to buy.

Or with in that case, we sent them a budget, and they could just go to run to the store, and this was the ingredient list. And they were sat in their kitchen with their laptops open and made a meal. So you got dinner out of it too.

_{Adam Landsman}

I I like a lot of those suggestions. I've said this often. Think we even talked about it. The days of just having a happy hour and having some some beer or or whatever drinks available, Often not enough to get people to either come from their home or or or stick around.

And I think all the companies that are doing things that are a little bit more interactive and desirable by the employees that they don't necessarily get on their own or with their friends or family are probably the bigger draws. Hundred percent. Alright. Let's let's talk about innovation.

For Sharebite, innovation is is totally critical. I imagine, obviously, for lots of companies, it is, innovation doesn't necessarily mean AI, but we can talk about AI AI if you'd like. What are some of the things that you've seen processes, tools that really help level up? And I say the workspace or the workplace, whether that's the office or just the environment that people are in.

_{Gerard Visser}

I mean, you mentioned AI, and it's really is making a difference. And we were actually all given a task a few weeks ago to do a hackathon. Everyone was given access to Fool Claude. They're like, what can make your job easier every day? And we're like, so I challenged my team. What can you do?

I built out something a skill that would run-in your Gmail inbox every day. It would tell you if you had a calendar invite from an external party that you hadn't accepted yet because security turned off automatically accepting external invites.

It also runs through all your messages, and anything that has unsubscribe in the bottom will automatically mark it as red. We didn't delete just in case there was something important in there. And the third thing would be, like, it would run through your threads and see if you were meant to respond to someone but did not would flag them in different colors for you each morning.

Another thing we did, we actually went and ran all the badge data, took it into we used Office Space, and they had an API that would plug directly into Claude. And I'd be like, great.

In the last sixty days, who's been here less than three days a week? And then for benefit of doubt, I was like, alright, make it two point five, and they're allowed one week off if there was no days in one week because there was probably a vacation, etcetera.

Now go look in Slack, who's their manager, create a Slack message, and it's like the hundred and sixty seven managers saying, hey. These people haven't been in at least two and a half days a week over the last sixty days. Do you have a reason why? Could you please let me know if there is or if they're not gonna be using the desks anymore?

_{Adam Landsman}

That was awesome. I'm gonna tell you right now, that's gonna be the most rewatched clip of this conversation. That was some really great stuff.

_{Gerard Visser}

Thank you.

_{Adam Landsman}

This may be too similar, but I always like to ask people, what are some of your career thus far highlight reels? Things that you've done, things that you've implemented along the way that you said that's that was a good one. Right? If I had the opportunity in a similar situation, I would do that again.

_{Gerard Visser}

Honestly, I know you guys brought me here, and this is not paid, but literally lunch in the office.

I did it from back when I worked in hedge funds, I sold it to them. And the number one reasoning behind it is productivity.

And people are like, but why productivity? You're giving people a break. I'm like, no. No.

People get a break, but what happens is you're giving them twenty bucks for lunch that arrives here. If I left, decided, oh, what do want? Waited in line, ordered my food, that's thirty minutes. Then I get back to the office, and then I sit down for thirty minutes.

Eat, chat, done. That's an hour. If you're paying for the food, it's already there. You're going sitting, eating thirty minutes, you're back at your desk.

So you're getting an extra thirty minutes of productivity. Twenty bucks an hour, that's forty k a year. Anyone making over that, you're winning.

_{Adam Landsman}

I'll just leave it at I agree.

Alright. This has been awesome. We're gonna get to the the last section, which is our lightning round if that's okay with you. Some some quick response. We call this section food for thought. So first thing that comes to mind, what is one thing every office should have?

_{Gerard Visser}

Good snacks, good break room, a place with music where they can go and sit and be away from their desk, and just have a moment to themselves, or just scroll Instagram, or just chat to someone where they don't feel like they're at their desk.

What is

_{Adam Landsman}

the most out there initiative you've ever proposed?

_{Gerard Visser}

When I was at Own, we actually had once a week, a barber would come in and you could slot time, so you wouldn't have to go to a barber shop.

A nail tech would come in on the other days, and you could also have your dry cleaning dropped off and picked up so people could literally just come to the office and not worry about it. They still paid for themselves, but they didn't have to go anywhere to do it, and we slightly subsidized it as well.

_{Adam Landsman}

Name a book, a person, or an experience that fundamentally changed how you think about people at work.

_{Gerard Visser}

That is a good one. I was I don't know if there's like a single person or book, but going into like actually attending conferences and listening to how other companies handle it and you're getting perspective from all different sizes. You're getting small companies, startups, you're getting medium company, but then you have like Netflix, then you have Nestle, who's massive corporate company, but they care about these things. And getting the different perspective, it doesn't matter how big the company is, you're all dealing with the same BS. People wanting small little things, people unhappy with temperatures rising or costs going down and not getting budget. Everyone's dealing with different things in a different way and coming up with a creative solutions. So it's like being able to hear those solutions and be like, oh, we can implement that.

It's great. Good.

_{Adam Landsman}

When you do those, icebreaker games and people say, what's your one fun fact?

What do you say?

_{Gerard Visser}

When I first moved to America, and I worked at Mar a Lago, I got to give Oprah a tour of Mar a Lago.

_{Adam Landsman}

Okay. You have you have that ready. I know you're a golfer.

_{Gerard Visser}

What's your handicap? I'm not actually sure what my handicap is, but I normally hit it like, eighty six on the front nine, and then I go to the back.

So there you go.

_{Adam Landsman}

Alright. Two more. What is your go to office lunch?

_{Gerard Visser}

Oh. It depends on the day, but there's one place called Sambo, and their steak is so good with and they make this crispy broccoli with buttered rice.

Calories must be off the charts, but it is delicious.

_{Adam Landsman}

Alright. Last question. Finish this sentence. People do their best work when?

_{Gerard Visser}

They're happy.

They're happy. They're happy. Alright. Simple as that. If your people are happy at work, they're comfortable. If you're supporting them, they'll keep putting out.

_{Adam Landsman}

Thank you, Gerard. This was awesome. I hope everyone appreciated. Words of Wisdom by Gerard Visser. Thank you so much, Gerard.

_{Gerard Visser}

Thanks, Adam. It's great to see you and happy to share.

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